So Stuart Berger just came right out last week and asked the question locals rarely bother to pose any more.

"Does Birmingham not do its homework?" he asked, miffed after this
city's school board bought snake oil from a guy he claims plagiarized
the dropout program he operates in Houston.

The short answer, Mr. Berger, is "No."

Birmingham does not do its homework. Not in the schools. Not in city hall. Not in the grand old courthouse.

Which is precisely why this town stumbles on its own ineptitude. Because those who sit on our councils and boards, by and large, are bad students of government. They are slackers, dozing on our back rows and drooling on textbooks they will never open.

Want a passing grade, guys? Crack a book.

Examples are everywhere.

Birmingham schools hired J.Vincent Brown's company -- The J. Vincent Group -- to bring dropouts back to school. But Brown has no track record, he was fired from Berger's company this year, and his hiring violates a no-compete agreement with Berger.

Shoot. J Vincent's past is so vague you wouldn't hire it to wash a car -- if you did homework. The board didn't. It learned its lesson only after News staffer Marie Leech dug the dirt.

The city of Birmingham last week pulled a plan to loan John's City Diner $440,000 after it learned -- from News reporter Roy Williams -- that the owner faced lawsuits he had not disclosed. Birmingham was hours from risking $2 for every man, woman and child in the city, but it didn't do its homework. Williams did it for them in 10 minutes.

At least that was just a loan, to a restaurant that adds to downtown. Worse was back in July, when the city gave $25,000 to the promoter of Vulcan Bike Week. That guy got the cash, then burned rubber to move the event out of town. He later returned the money, but the damage -- if not the homework -- was done.

A day after the decision I asked a council member -- who in fairness was not at the vote -- what was so vital about the event. He said he wasn't sure, but that bicycling is "healthy."

It is. Too bad bike week was about motorcycles.

And then there's Jefferson County, where laments about cash flow are matched in number only by requests for things like, you know, office furniture and trips to the beach.

Last week Commissioner George Bowman pushed to get investment bankers Grigsby and Associates added to the team of bankers working to end the county's debt crisis. It was the second time Bowman had pushed for Grigsby.

The problem is not that there is no such team of bankers working for the county's debt. Just a law firm. The problem is not that CEO Calvin Grigsby was twice indicted -- and acquitted -- on federal charges involving kickbacks. The problem is that we never learn, and we ignore our history.

This county is under water on billions in debt largely because every commissioner, in every recent commission, came to the table with a favorite bond dealer who wanted a piece of the pie.